Kenneth Armitage was born in Leeds, England, in 1916. He was educated at Leeds College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art in London before joining the British Army in 1939. After leaving the army, Armitage became Head of Sculpture at the Bath Academy of Art in 1946. In 1953, he became the Gregory Fellow in Sculpture at the University of Leeds, effectively serving as the country’s first university artist in residence. In 1964, he was a visiting professor at the University of Caracas, Venezuela, and at Boston University, Massachusetts, in 1970; from 1974 to 1979, he was a visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art. These international aspects of his career reflected Armitage's growing reputation as one of the leading British sculptors of his generation.
For Kenneth Armitage (1916-2002), the 1952 Venice Biennale’s New Aspects of British Sculpture exhibition was “the beginning of my professional life”. The show also featured work by Robert Adams, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Geoffrey Clarke, Bernard Meadows, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull, provoking intense interest and ushering in a new wave in British sculpture in the post-war years. Peggy Guggenheim, Elsa Schiaparelli, the Museum of Modern Art in Rome and MoMA New York all bought pieces.
“I was totally unknown before that, and in those few weeks I became a known name internationally,” writes Armitage. That same year in 1952, he had his first solo show in London. In 1958 he returned as the sole representative of British sculpture, winning the David E. Bright Foundation Award for best international sculpture.
Born in Leeds, he was educated at Leeds College of Art and Slade School of Fine Art in London, before joining the British Army in 1939. After leaving the army, Armitage became Head of Sculpture at Bath University in 1946. In 1953, he became Great Britain’s first university artist in residence at Leeds.
In 1964, he was a visiting professor at the University of Caracas, Venezuela; Boston University, Massachusetts in 1970; and from 1974 to 1979, a visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art. These international aspects of his career reflected Armitage’s growing reputation as one of the leading British sculptors of his generation.
The movement and energy in Armitage’s sculpture is an abiding presence. For example, in People in the Wind (1950), a sculpture acquired by the Tate Gallery (and exhibited at the 1952 Venice Biennale), a cluster of four figures strain against the element. Armitage writes, “naturally my sculpture contains ideas or experiences other than those that derive directly from observation of the human image, nevertheless it is always dressed in some degree in human form.” Parallel themes occur in his drawings and prints.
Three retrospective exhibitions held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1959), Artcurial, Paris (1985) and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (1996 – 1997) have summarised Armitage’s achievement and his passions for the human form and human condition, movement and trees. His inclination as an artist has always been towards abstraction and simplification of form, with bronze a preferred medium. His work is represented in public and private collections world-wide. Armitage was awarded the CBE in 1969 and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1994.
In 2001, the year before his death, his sculpture Both Arms (2000) and a commemorative blue plaque was erected in Millennium Square, Leeds which was unveiled by Nelson Mandela. In 2018, as a grand finale celebrating the Centenary of Armitage’s birth, Legs Walking (2001) was placed in City Square, Leeds.
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